LA Review of Books

In this special episode, hosts Medaya Ocher, Kate Wolf, and Eric Newman discuss the "crisis" du jour in American publishing: the erosion of male literary stars and their readers across the landscape of contemporary fiction. Is this even happening—and if so, why? Tackling cultural anxieties about the waning centrality of the straight, white male author alongside spurious statistics and questions about the material realities of publishing in the 21st century, the hosts break down the forces they see lurking behind the discourse. Links: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/opinion/men-fiction-novels.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/style/fiction-books-men-reading.html https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/against-high-brodernism/ https://www.vox.com/culture/392971/men-reading-fiction-statistics-fact-checked https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n16/emily-witt/do-you-feel-like-a-failure https://theconversation.com/a-new-publisher-will-focus-on-books-by-men-are-male-writers-and-readers-under-threat-255874 https://defector.com/the-plight-of-the-white-male-novelist

Kate Wolf speaks with historian Fara Dabhoiwala about his new book, "What is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea." A foundational aspect of the U.S. Constitution, free speech is a relatively recent invention and one rooted less in democratic ideals than first may be clear. Tracking its evolution from the pre-modern age through the Enlightenment to our present day, Dabhoiwala explores how free speech and freedom of the press initially served imperial and corporate interests rather than those of common citizens. His book also examines the counterintuitive ways free speech continues to be an engine for questionable ends today, benefitting tech companies and upholding misogyny and racism. But while it has never been equally distributed, free speech has also resulted, at times, in more freedom rather than less, so what are we to do with this abiding concept and how might we modify its absolutism to better serve those it claims to protect?

This week we're listening back to Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher's interview with the Palestinian poet, short-story writer, and essayist Mosab Abu Toha. Abu Toha is the author of the award-winning collection of poetry, "Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear," as well as the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which he hopes to one day rebuild. In 2025, Toha was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his series of essays about Gaza in the New Yorker and his work has also appeared in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Review of Books. This conversation took place in 2024 when "Forest of Noise," a collection of poems, grappling with Abu Toha's memories, experiences, and many losses was published. Last week the UN officially declared a famine in Gaza for the first time since the beginning of the war.

Eric Newman speaks with Nicholas Boggs about his monumental new biography, "James Baldwin: A Love Story." Drawing on fresh archival research and interviews, Boggs offers an intimate portrait of the literary legend anchored by the romances that shaped his life, writing, and political vision. Spanning Baldwin’s formative mentorship under artist Beauford Delaney, his romance with Lucien Happersberger, and lesser-known relationships with Turkish actor Engin Cezzar and French artist Yoran Cazac, the book explores how these relationships, alongside periods of isolation, served as the engines of Baldwin's literary production. Arriving amid a renaissance of interest in Baldwin’s life and work, Boggs’ biography offers a fresh perspective on the iconic writer for longtime fans and younger generations who may be encountering him for the first time.

Kate Wolf speaks with Nathan Kernan about his new biography, "A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler." It’s an intimate look at the great poet who was born in 1923 and would become one of the original members of the so-called New York School along with John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch and Barbra Guest. With the restraint, precision and wry humor of one of Schuyler’s own poems, Kernan’s biography delves into Schuyler’s tumultuous upbringing in the midwest and Washington DC, his early years in 1940s New York City where he became close with and worked as the secretary to the poet W.H. Auden, his fateful meeting of Ashbery and O’Hara, which led to the composition of his first poems, and his many struggles with mental illness. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for his collection, "The Morning of the Poem," Schuyler’s decades of instability began to ease only by his later years, but the lucid observation and “inspired utterance” of his work remained a constant throughout his life.

Eric Newman speaks with director Sam Feder and producer Amy Scholder about their new documentary "Heightened Scrutiny." The film follows ACLU attorney Chase Strangio’s journey to the Supreme Court in United States v. Skrmetti, which sought to overturn Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth. Alongside Strangio's work on the case, interviews with journalists, activists, and others reveal how media coverage of trans issues by publications including the New York Times have fueled legislative attacks against trans people as well as a burgeoning anti-trans cultural turn fed by disinformation. Feder and Scholder's documentary offers a sobering look at the current assault on trans rights.

Writer and scholar Michael Clune joins Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher to discuss his debut novel, "Pan." It captures the frenetic mind of a 15-year old boy named Nicholas as he undergoes his first panic attacks. Trapped in suburban Illinois in a time before the internet, Nicholas has little basis to understand what is happening to him. His search to understand his panic leads him to the condition’s namesake, the Greek god Pan, and a series of strange rituals Nicholas will go on to perform that involve him with a group of close friends. But the presence of Pan in the book also underscores an even more fateful aspect of Nicholas’s awakening: the connection between feeling, language, and literature, and anxiety as the catalyst for spirituality, insight, and criticism.

Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher are joined by writer and professor Sebastian Castillo whose new novel "Fresh, Green Life" is the LARB Book Club pick for the summer. "Fresh, Green Life" follows a narrator, also named Sebastian Castillo, who has resolved to spend a year alone, exercising, watching self-improvement videos and thinking about how he has arrived at this particular point in his life: a lapsed adjunct philosophy professor, obsessed with a former classmate named Maria, but disconnected from everyone around him. Castillo discusses a certain type of lost literary man, the creation of art, and the why it may or may not all be worth it.

Medaya Ocher and Kate Wolf speak with writer Catherine Lacey, author of the novels "Biography of X," "Pew," "The Answers," and a short story collection, "Certain American States." Her most recent work is "The Möbius Book," which is split in two — one half is fiction and the other memoir. The novel tells the story of two friends, catching up on a grim Christmas Eve. The memoir is about Catherine herself, set adrift after a brutal breakup. Lacey discusses new beginnings, the formal experiment in the book, the connection between memory and storytelling.

Medaya Ocher and Eric Newman speak with Traci Thomas, host of the "The Stacks” podcast. They discuss the impact of social media on publishing, the content creator life, and the way readers discover books today. At the end of the episode, Medaya, Eric, and Traci offer readers a rundown of recommendations for the books getting us through 2025.